I intended this message for all, not just Eugene:
Ana
-----Original Message-----
From: Ana Marjanovic-Shane [mailto:anamshane@speakeasy.net]
Sent: Sunday, August 10, 2003 11:33 PM
To: ematusov@UDel.Edu
Subject: Re: improv
Dear Eugene and all,
Unfinalizing/finalizing also reminds me of any analysis/ explanatory
activity. You can open up layers and layers and perspectives upon
perspectives if you unfinalize. It is also similar to the V. Shklovsky's
"estrangement" method -- look at everything and everybody with a fresh
look, and do not presuppose that you know everything. There is always
something more.
OK.
But I have several questions:
Don't you think that the two: finalizing and unfinalizing are
complementary and that both serve a purpose, but a different one? Let me
give you an example. Suppose you take the first response bellow:
"I think that it would be a great idea to make a quick survey to find
out exactly where the children's most favorite place is at the LACC."
Suppose you make a quick survey and children told you "place A". And
suppose that you made a lot of observations and you found out that in
fact it seems that there is another place (Place B) at the LACC where
they spend most time of their own will. Ok. Maybe you problematize this
further and, say -- you will ask children, how come they spend more time
at this other place (B) if they say that their favorite place is place
A. And then suppose they don't know, or everyone starts giving you
different answers...
What I want to say is that at some point you might want to stop
unfinalizing and begin making your mind up (finalizing).
I am just playing a devils' advocate. :-)
It looks to me beautiful and artistic to say that "Dostoevsky [did it
not only] for the sake of reader but also for the sake of the character"
-- but on the other hand the character is a fiction that would not exist
unless Dostoevky wanted to tell readers about him.
I like the notion that as a social scientist you should not turn people
into things/objects but that you have to "spiritualize" them (I guess he
meant "give them life") and that you have to keep in mind that no matter
what you are doing, it is inter subjective and will have inter
subjective consequences. But sometimes the "units" of analysis are not
people, but relationships, or "formations" that are much larger that
persons (lichnost). Or on the other hand, sometimes, there are aspects
of persons (lichnosti) of which they might not be aware -- but you (as
an observer, friend, social scientist...) are.
However, that does not mean that we should "finalize" too much, On the
contrary, I think that unfinalizing is very useful and that it should be
done ALWAYS -- to the point where we all can say : as it looks at this
point, until we find more about it, this looks to be an "XYZ" (whatever).
Hm, does this make sense?
Ana
Eugene Matusov wrote:
Dear Ana and everybody-
-----Original Message-----
From: anamshane@speakeasy.net <mailto:anamshane@speakeasy.net>
[mailto:anamshane@speakeasy.net]
Sent: Thursday, August 07, 2003 2:12 PM
To: ematusov@UDel.Edu <mailto:ematusov@UDel.Edu>
Subject: Re: improv
Dear Eugene,
Can you tell us more about "this type of unfinalized and
addressed relations" and how did Bakhtin thenk that they "have to be
the key for any social sciences"?
I think that Bakhtin introduced two notions that have not been well
explored:
1) Spiritualization: problematizing and not finalizing people about (or
with) you are talking about. Let me give examples of problematizing and
finalizing (examples came from our class discussion of Latin American
Community Center - LACC - children on the class web):
Problematizing: "I think that it would be a great idea to make a quick
survey to find out exactly where the children's most favorite place is
at the LACC.". Problematizing involves articulating uncertainty about
LACC children.
Finalizing: "Please don't think that I feel harassed, because I don't. I
feel that they are just boys being boys" (in the context of
preadolescence boys using sexual language toward a female university
student). The student does not problematize the boys actions but
normalized and objectivized them.
2) Intersubjectivity: treating your topic of discourse/narrative as a
co-subject and a co-partner in a dialogue. Bakhtin used the term
"personality-ness" (actually Bakhtin used the term "lichnost'" in
Russian) to articulate the intersubjective nature of investigation about
another person in humanitarian sciences as in opposition to
"thing-ness". In my work, I use terms of "subjectivizing others" and
"objectivizing others". Let me give examples of subjectizing and
objectivizing (examples came from our class discussion of Latin American
Community children on the class web):
Subjectivizing: "an LACC child says that she was not proud of being
American because Americans bomb her home island in Puerto-Rico".
Subjectivizing involves getting information from LACC children themselves.
Objectivizing: "They provide such a great environment and wonderful
experiences for the children who go there. Kids love them." The student
was talking about the violence prevention program for boys at LACC. What
was interesting is that later the students learned from the boys that
they hated the program and tried to avoid it as much as possible.
Students' inferences based on their observations were wrong. The issue
is not where observation- or speculation-based inferences are right or
wrong but rather that the author does not try to check it with the
people themselves about whom they talk. Objectivizing is based on the
author drawing information and conclusions in his/her statements about
the LACC children from his/her observations, general knowledge, and
other people but not from the LACC children themselves.
Below is a quote from Bakhtin's essay Bakhtin, M. M., Holquist, M., &
Emerson, C. (1986). Speech genres and other late essays (1st ed.).
Austin: University of Texas Press.
"The exact sciences constitute a monologic form of knowledge: the
intellect contemplates a thing and expounds upon it. There is only one
subject here-cognizing (contemplating) and speaking (expounding). In
opposition to the subject there is only a voiceless thing. Any object of
knowledge (including man) can be perceived and cognized as a thing. But
a subject as such cannot be perceived and studied as a thing, for as a
subject it cannot, while remaining a subject, become voiceless, and,
consequently, cognition of it can only be dialogic. Dilthey and the
problem of understandings Various ways of being active in cognitive
activity. The activity of the one who acknowledges a voiceless thing
and the activity of one who acknowledges another subject, that is, the
dialogic activity of the acknowledger. The dialogic activity of the
acknowledged subject, and the degrees of this activity. The thing and
the personality (subject) as limits of cognition. Degrees of thing-ness
and personality-ness. The event-potential of dialogic cognition.
Meeting. Evaluation as a necessary aspect of dialogic cognition.
The human sciences-sciences of the spirit-philological sciences (as part
of and at the same time common to all of them-the word)." (Bakhtin,
Holquist, & Emerson, 1986, p. 161)
When Dostoyevsky did not tell about his characters more than they alredy
know themselves, I think that that was a way to ensure that the reader
sees everything from "inside" each character. In other words -- there is
no "narrator" no character to tell you anything more than you would find
in natural life if you were able to follow each character in those
relevant scenes.
I think it is more than just let reader knows how the character thinks
and feels "inside". Rather, as Bakhtin argued, Dostoevsky tried to
develop intersubjectivity with his characters. That is why he never
portrayed how characters die (unlike Tolstoy). Now in words of Bakhtin,
"The hero [student] interests Dostoevsky [the dialogic teacher] not as
some manifestation of reality that possesses fixed socially typical or
individually characteristic traits [like "slow learner", "good student",
"having misconceptions," "learning disability", "African American
student", "lazy", "from poor family", etc..], nor as a specific profile
assembled out of unambiguous and objective features which, taken
together, answer the question 'Who is he?' No, the hero [student]
interests Dostoevsky [the dialogic teacher] as a particular point of
view on the world and on him/herself, as the position enabling a person
to interpret and evaluate his own self and his surrounding reality. What
is important to [the dialogic teacher] is not how his hero [student]
appears in the world but first and foremost how the world appears to his
hero [student], and how the hero [student] appears to himself" (Problem
of Dostoevsky Poetics, 1999, p.47) [in brackets, my 'translation' of
Bakhtin's point into education].
This unfinalization engages a reader to build the missing parts of the
story and in a way to be in the story next to every other character and
not "above". The result is a certan kind of equality between the reader
and the characters -- and maybe also the writter as a hidden voice.
Again, I think, according to Bakhtin, unfinalizing is not only done by
Dostoevsky for the sake of reader but also for the sake of the character.
What do you think?
Eugene
PS My preliminary research of my students' postings about LACC kids show
that they almost exclusively objectivized and finalized LACC children in
their discourse on the class web while the instructor was trying to
subjectivized and problematized. However, the students subjectivize and
problematize themselves and some other third-person narratives.
What do you think?
Ana
-----Original Message-----
From: Eugene Matusov [mailto:ematusov@udel.edu]
Sent: Thursday, August 7, 2003 05:40 PM
To: xmca@weber.ucsd.edu <mailto:xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
Subject: RE: improv
Dear Carrie and Ana-
I just want to make a connection between your characterization and emphasis
on "not knowing" in improvisation and Bakhtin's notion of "unfinalizing". He
also stressed importance of listening and responding to others. Bakhtin
argued that Dostoevsky did not tell about his characters more than they
already know themselves. He generalized that this type of unfinalized and
addressed relations have to be the key for any social sciences.
What do you think?
Eugene
> -----Original Message-----
> From: lobman@rci.rutgers.edu <mailto:lobman@rci.rutgers.edu>
[mailto:lobman@rci.rutgers.edu]
> Sent: Wednesday, August 06, 2003 1:18 PM
> To: xmca@weber.ucsd.edu <mailto:xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
> Subject: RE: improv
>
>
> I think improv does change some of the expert/novice dynamic because its
> a not-knowing activity--as Ana says no one "knows" where it is going. I
> do think I think for me the prerequisite to listening and responding is
> not knowing. It is impossible, not to mention not necessary, to listen
> to people if we already "know" what they mean--it stops the process of
> making meaning together.
>
> I see this as different than equalizing people or making people
> equal--in my experience when people improvise together all of the power
> relationships are still there, but they are played with or used in the
> process of creating the performance.
>
> For example, there was one man and seven women in the group of teachers
> that participated in the improv trainings. During the first couple of
> weeks some of the women had reactions to the more his "more male"
> performances--more vulgar or lifting up his shirt... In addition he was
> the only one in the group with any theatre training so his performances
> tended to be a little more polished. Over the course of the eight weeks
> the group began to use his offers to create interesting scenes--they
> began to use their more "honest" reactions to him to create playful
> scenes about sex roles.
>
> Carrie
>
>
> > I loved the idea of improv leveling power differentials. That is a
> major
> > goal of various customs in the 5thD. It is, however, very threatening
> to
> > teachers who are working in regimes where they must appear to be in
> > control all the time!
> > mike
> >
> >
>
>
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